Most readers here understand the concepts behind the Primal Blueprint, but some seem to be concerned about the amount of time it must take to prepare PB-style meals every day. Nothing could be further from the truth. My 4-egg breakfast or protein shake take but a few minutes. My evening lamb-chop or grass-fed porterhouse with steamed veggies is complete in under ten minutes. But my fastest meal is also my favorite (and probably healthiest). That, of course, is the “2-minute big-ass salad” I have every day. I’ll show you how easy it is to make in the following video. I’ve also done the fitday.com analysis and it’s pretty impressive: 588 total calories. 37 grams of protein, 40 of fat and only 27 of carbs…and that’s probably my highest carb meal of the day!

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I plan on trying to do more videos in the future. If you have anything you would like me to address in video format hit me up with a comment.

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Imagine you’re George Clooney. Take a moment to admire your grooming and wit. Okay, now imagine someone walks up to you and asks, “What’s your name?” You say, “I’m George Clooney.” Or maybe you say, “I’m the Clooninator!” You don’t say “I’m George of George Clooney Sells Movies Blog” and you certainly don’t say, “I’m Clooney Weight Loss Plan”. So while spam is technically meat, it ain’t anywhere near Primal. Please nickname yourself something your friends would call you.

Yep, real men DO eat salad, and LOTS of it! I grow my greens in the summer in prodigous quantities and devour them at least a couple times a day. When I can’t grow them I buy them and do the same. Lots of good veggies (did I mention I LOVE my garden?), lean meat & fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, topped with balasmic dressing. I don’t avoid grain carbs but I limit them to once a day, and never in the morning or at noon. Sugar spikes, fatigue, insulin related blood sugar drops and the inevitable cravings, are gone from my life. Just over 2 months and 25 pounds lost, and there is no doubt that I’m on the right track. Energy levels, muscle tone, mental clarity, brighter eyes, better skin, and postive comments and looks from not just my wife but also from women when I’m out and about…it all adds up to a very powerful motivator to keep on doing what I’m doing and futher refining how I do it. Lots of time in the gym too, with cardio and resistanc training. The endorphin rush from a good workout is a reward in itself!

Thanks for sharing. What amazed me the most is you keeping everything ready into tupperwares. Never thought about such a time saving trick. Do you leave items out after washing to make them dry, before storing them? You keep a – dry? – towel on top of the salad greens to absorb moisture, don’t you?

Cheese, nuts, DIY croutons made with quinoa or amaranth meal; these thing will add great taste, texture and protien to the salad and are all vegetarian in nature. Omit the cheese and it’s even vegan.

The secret to clean and healthy eating is planning and preparation. Tupperware makes some awesome containers for storing veggies in. We use ours for lettuce and other veggies. Whether from the garden or the market, when it’s in the house we prep things into bite-sized pieces and store it in the fridge so it’s ready to go. Salads, stir frys and quick snacks are convenient and ready to go when we want them.

My husband and I also eat enormous salads as much as possible! I am into all kinds of lettuce and greens, arugula, watercress, frizee, spinach and more- all superfoods. I either make my own dressing, or use miso. I have lovely photos of my salads. My fave is rare grilled ahi on cabbage & lettuce with ginger wasabi miso dressing & sesame seeds.

Mark the Big Ass Salad is the way to go. I agree. More times than none, that’s what I have, I just tend to change my protein around, depending on what’s left over from dinner the night before or what’s available, i.e. tuna fish, salmon, some rotisserie chicken. Plus my wife makes my salad dressings too. There’s nothing like a homemade salad dressing. Mark quick suggestion though, it would be Awesome (Barney Stinson voice) if you made your videos, IPAD FRIENDLY. I know many of your followers like myself would appreciate it..

Snow peas are just a pod. There are no legumes in the pod. For those of you, who may have problems with cucumbers, I have been using zucchini slices as a substitute. Pine nuts are very expensive. Walnuts would be good on a salad.

On one of the old posts someone asked about the salad dressing mixer, I saw something at Starbucks that would work perfectly for this; it’s an instant ice tea mixer cup and it has propeller type blades at the bottom that gyrate and go up and down when you pump the pump handle on the cup. It looks like a 16 oz. cup so it’s a good size.

I love how you say “fats are our friend.” And that salad just made me hungry. Lots of good stuff on there–the pine nuts are a good touch. I have been using sunflower seeds. I love me some heir loom tomatoes as well.

Mark..how come you list snow peas in the salad? I always thought peas and beans were not allowed on the primal diet?. I may have to refresh my memory and reread some your book? Time to get my book back from my cousin

That salad is 63% Fat… and my idea of a big salad is at least 1 head of lettuce. This really isn’t a salad at all but a serving of meat and fat with a little bit of lettuce if you look at calo-nutrient ratio. I really believe recommending people eat a high fat, high protein diet will cause serious long term problems.

No, I’ve done the math on this before. If you add a can of Coke and a large candy bar to the big ass salad, you are no longer eating “high fat”. Because “high fat” is measured as a percentage, so just adding a bunch of crappy carbs to it makes it no longer “high fat”.

But it’s patently obvious that soda and candy does NOT make a healthier lunch than just a big pile of veggies and good protein nicely dressed with healthy oil.

It’s the entire problem with looking at diet as percentages – it can result in stupidity.

I’m a vegetarian, so we drop the dead chicken (it never did anything to us).

We replace the chicken with Chinese Mock Duck (which is mostly wheat gluten… semi-bad) sliced finely, coated in a mixture of vegetable stock powder and cayenne pepper and fried in coconut oil, it’s awesome. You could also coat some tempeh in spices, salt and pepper and fry those babies to a crisp without worrying about the dreaded phyto-oestrogens.

The other way to change things up (that that Mark has mentioned elsewhere, but didn’t mention in the video) is to change the dressings. Add some Sesame Oil, maybe a little chili… Mark’s sensational strawberry vinaigrette.

I eat an even bigger-ass salad, and was very intrigued by the promise of a humongous bowl of greeens, good fat, and protein that could be made in just 2 minutes, as it takes me a heck of a lot more than 2 mins to throw mine together. As a couple of other folks have mentioned, calling this a “Two-Minute Salad” is rather misleading: you’ve (I hope) pre-scrubbed your veggies, you’ve pre-chopped most of them (maybe not the tomatoes, if they’re grape tomatoes), you’ve pre-BBQed the chicken, and you’ve bought a mixed salad green mix (which really isn’t safe from food poisoning, as we’ve learned from the baby spinach and other bagged-salad crises) and whereas you’ve done everything else in advance, you can’t’ve run your salad through a salad spinner or treated it with the peroxide/vinegar trick (see (1), and:

I use a big bowl. I fill it with an entire bag of mixed salad greens ( the kind with carrots and red cabbage)..cut up 2 hard boiled eggs..throw on 1/4 cup Kraft cheese crumbles..cut up 2 tomatoes..toss in some grilled chicken breats ( cubed)..sprinkle on some sunflower seeds and pepitas..cut up 3 strawberries..and drizzle the whole thing with an oil based dressing.

This huge sucker will last me all day. When I’m home..and hungry, I’ll just pull it from the frige and eat til I’m no longer hungry..then back into the fridge it goes.

If I’m out..I’ll just take some along in a gladware bowl….or I’ll just eat my nuts.

And yes..I’ve learned to never say that around kids….atleast my own weird crazy kids.

Love the 2 minute salad. All my meals take 1 minute by the way. All I do is spend an hour the night before cooking and preparing everything, putting it in the fridge, then taking it out the next day and heating for 60 seconds…. *rolls eyes at 2 minute salad title* Everything is 2 minutes or less when you pre-prepare things… seriously?

Get real. We don’t all live in California or Florida. Try north of 60, and then try, try to survive without grains and root vegetables. You Americans live so cheap, so “high off the hog” and the rest of the world is your banana republic.

The Primal Blueprint Podcast

Interviews with Mark Sisson and other health experts. Audio versions of select Mark’s Daily Apple posts each week. “Best of MDA” recordings. Fresh, lively content to help you stay at the cutting edge of Primal living!